4/9/09 - Forum: No religious basis to block Sunday sales
In his recent column on the state legislature's consideration and rejection of legislation that would have allowed communities to decide whether alcohol could be sold in stores on Sundays, University of Georgia graduate student Tim Echols wrote, "the distilleries and their financial interests demonize the Christian community in the process."Read Full Story

12/1/2008 - Debating the issue of Sunday sales
When Eric Weber serves pizza at his restaurant, The Slice, he passes it over the counters. But with beer, it's a different matter. To comply with Indiana's excise laws, he must walk any alcohol around the counter and set it on the tables where his customers are sitting.Read Full Story

8/30/2008 - Alabama's Prohibition Past
Seventy-five years ago this month, Alabama voted to ratify the 21st Amendment to repeal national Prohibition. Before Prohibition was established in 1920, the state had been an unusually strong supporter of outlawing alcoholic beverages. However, it quickly became apparent Prohibition was not having the desired outcomes. Read Full Story

8/15/2008 - Texas' old alcohol laws need to change
Fort Worth recently experienced the largest petition drive in the city's history. The number of signatures submitted to the city secretary dwarfed by more than four times the 16,000 people who signed a 2002 petition regarding whether the city should build a convention center hotel.Read Full Story

7/27/2008 - Time for Indiana to repeal its blue laws
When I moved to southern Indiana nearly nine years ago, it was on a Sunday. Why not, I figured. When I got everything in and settled, I was more than ready to crack open a six-pack. Imagine my surprise when informed I would have to meander across the river to Louisville to buy anything. They had blue laws in Indiana? I wish someone had told me that, I would have moved down the day before. Don't get me started on the whole concept of cold beer costing more than warm beer.Read Full Story

7/22/2008 - Leave Prohibition behind; allow Sunday liquor sales
On July 11, 1933, Connecticut ratified the 21st Amendment, leading to the repeal of Prohibition. In the early part of the 20th century, the Yankee population increasingly advocated prohibition of alcohol as a way to reduce the crime, poverty and vice it considered associated with the flood of southern European and eastern European immigrants entering the state.Read Full Story

7/11/2008 - Iowa, prohibition: A toxic brew
An historic event occurred 75 years ago on July 10, 1933. On that day, Iowa ratified the Twenty-First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. On Dec. 5 of the same year, after it had been ratified by the required 36 states, National Prohibition was repealed.Read Full Story

6/30/2008 - Repeal ban on the sale of alcohol on Sundays
When it was first imposed in 1920, many Hoosiers expected that Prohibition would lower crime, improve health, decrease accidents, lead to prosperity, protect young people and raise public morals. Celebrations were held across the state, and famous evangelist Billy Sunday visited, preaching that Prohibition would save many people from hell.Read Full Story

5/4/08 - Legalizing Hard Booze Didn't Let It Flow Freely
The formal ending of Prohibition on Dec. 5, 1933, didn't cause nearly the level of revelry that legalizing 3.2 percent beer in the Bay Area had done eight months earlier. The reason was that Californians still couldn't buy hard liquor by the drink. Licensed establishments could legally serve wine and beer by the glass, but not distilled spirits.Read Full Story

4/16/2008 - Blue Sunday
Liquor sales ban is dated. Starting July 1, the people of Colorado will be able to shop in liquor stores on Sundays. On Monday, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter signed legislation repealing the state's so-called blue law, which prohibited Sunday liquor store sales. That means Oklahoma is one of only 15 states clinging to anachronistic blue laws. Read Full Story

4/12/2008 - Buying booze on Sundays okayed
DENVER (KWGN) - Sunday liquor sales will become law Monday. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will sign a bill that will add an extra day for liquor retailers to stay open.

The new law won't go into effect until July 1st. Places like Ken Caryl Village Wine and Spirits will now be able to sell their liquor to customers every day of the week. "For the customers they can come in here and purchase anything they want not just beer they were limited to before," said store owner Greg Lisano.Read Full Story

4/11/2008 - Blue law will fade to black
Gov. Bill Ritter has pledged to sign a bill allowing Sunday liquor sales - a move that prompted a threat of a ballot initiative from retailers who stand to lose money.

Ritter's office said Thursday that he would sign the bill Monday morning.

The bill, which would take effect in July, would allow liquor stores to open on Sundays. Liquor retailers cheered the move, but convenience stores and grocers — which, with only a few exceptions, are limited to selling 3.2 percent-alcohol beer - said it will make the existing unfair system even more lopsided.Read Full Story